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Dublin GAA

By the 14th minute he had 0-3 on the board as Crokes led 0-4 to 0-0 and while Jude’s rallied in the second half, Mannion was on hand to repel them time and again.

Crokes joint-manager Robbie Brennan said: “He was struggling with a hamstring so we really weren’t sure. For him to pull that out of the bag was just… but again, everyone has seen what he’s capable of all year. Thank God he did it today.

“He’s had a niggle kind of a back injury and it flared up there in the first 10 or 15 minutes with the hamstring. So he did that on one leg – and you know what he’s like on two legs!”

Jude’s didn’t register a score until the 18th minute, a Niall Coakley free.

By half-time it was 0-7 to 0-3 and though Jude’s started the second half with much greater intent and registered seven further points by the 46th, their momentum was checked by two Mannion points and a goal from Pat Burke after extremely slack marking.

While Jude’s reacted well and chipped away at the deficit, Mannion popped up late on to kill them off.

There were just two points in it when he skipped past Ciaran Fitzpatrick to hit the clinching goal with three minutes left to set up a Leinster quarter-final meeting with St Peter’s Dunboyne in Navan on Sunday week – a game which puts Brennan in a quandary.